Zebra Seeking Spoons

I was careful.

I told myself

today would be different—

paced, measured,

a quiet kind of discipline

that might leave something left

for later.

—

But pain does not negotiate.

It arrives early,

takes more than it needs,

asks for interest

on energy I haven’t even lived yet.

—

By noon

I have already spent tomorrow.

Spoons gone

on getting out of bed,

on holding my own body upright,

on pretending this is manageable

because I wanted it to be.

—

And there was something today.

Something soft and important.

Something I circled

in my mind for days

like a small, steady light.

I saw myself there—

laughing,

present,

unafraid of the cost.

—

Instead,

I am here

with empty hands.

A drawer full of absence.

A calendar that doesn’t understand

what it means

to run out before you begin.

—

Missing it feels physical.

Not just disappointment—

but a dull, spreading ache

that has nothing to do

with my joints or muscles.

A second pain

laid over the first.

—

I hold one bent spoon

like proof

that I tried.

Like evidence

that I wanted this life

enough

to plan for it.

—

Somewhere,

there is a version of me

who made it there.

Who didn’t have to choose

between being alive now

and being able later.

—

But this is the body I have.

And today,

showing up

means staying.

Means letting the wanting exist

without turning it

into another kind of damage.

—

I didn’t go.

But I cared.

And somehow,

that has to count

as something.